UBC - Day 12 - Carers tips - Local Resources

Welcome to day 12 of the Ultimate Blog Challenge, good to have you here!  Today I want to share with you about accessing your local resources, that will provide assistance to you in your caring role.

Mum taking part in an art activity

You can't go it alone, and the saying 'no man is an island' rings especially true.  As carers we do spend a large proportion of our time in isolation it is a good idea to see what local resources exist in your area.  It is a good idea to check out your local carers group - who will not only have information about any financial help or training that you can get they can let you know about the resources specifically for carers, and groups that you can join that will help you take some time out for yourself.

Sekani sharing a joke with mum

Contacting the groups can be the bridge which gets you out of the isolating situation and be around people who understand your circumstances because they are going through it themselves.  I found going to a carers group particularly useful, and when mum was first diagnosed I knew nothing about dementia apart from the articles I had read in the news. I decided to attend a course run by my local carers group which covered aspects of dementia, strategies and tips on how to manage and more.  It was informative and I got a lot of information which helped, it also allowed me to see that some of the things that I felt guilty about especially to do with how I felt about the illness was normal and it helped that as a group we could share our experiences.  This is so important for carers and makes such a big difference to your feeling of isolation as you can share and swap ideas and ways you have found to cope.  

Mum enjoying time with the family

There are also people who volunteer who used to be carers and they can give an insight to how they have coped when the time comes for you to think about life after care.  It might be set up differently in your own areas, but it is worth finding out.  The main thing is that you have to take a step, make a call, put your name on a few mailings lists to keep up to speed as much as possible with what is going on in your area and find out what is going on.

For now, check out what local resources you have to hand and make a point to do just one thing and connect with another carer.

You can also click on the 'Celebrating life' image to be taken to the rest of the posts from the Journey of a Carer

UBC - Day 11 - Fresh Air - Tips for Carers

Welcome to day 11 of the Ultimate Blog Challenge

When you are a carer you very often have to fight to take time out for yourself, there are so many aspects of what you do, you can find it hard justifying taking a break, cause you could be hoovering, folding the clothes or helping the one you are caring for to do something or another.  There is always something to be done, and so little time.

What we have to remember as carers is that all of those things will be there in half an hour, or 20 minutes, and they will surely be there tomorrow, and in light of this revelation taking that 20 minutes to walk around the block can and will do so much for your health and mental well-being.  We so under estimate what getting some fresh air into our lungs, and even feeling the breeze or sunshine on our faces.  The fact is more and more people become deficient to vitamin D and this deficiency has also been one of the things linked to dementia.

It is vitally important then to get out of the house every day, as I said, you could just walk round the block, or walk 10 minutes in one direction and then walk back.  If you can take the one that you care for with you, you could both be getting your dose of sunshine (we have been blessed with in at the moment here in the UK, and so late in the year as well!).  

With mum now using the wheel chair it is actually easier for me to take her out and just simply walk round the block, take in some stores and hear the music being played by buskers in Camden. The thing that won't be good enough is sticking your head out of the window or door, you have to physically go out to feel the benefits.  By all means open the windows and let the air flow though your home but you owe it to yourself to experience the fresh air while walking.

For now, decide when you will do it, don't wait until you have bucket loads of time, cause you never will.  Just decide to walk 10 minutes in any direction and then back and see how you feel. 

You can also click on the 'Celebrating life' image to be taken to the rest of the posts from the Journey of a Carer

UBC - Day 10 Carers Tips - & Gratitudes and Celebration - Week 60 - Release

Welcome to Day 10 of the Ultimate Blog Challenge, and also my Friday Gratitude and Celebration post.  It has been a busy week, and I have managed to slip with two of the days for the challenge. I had hoped to post as usual alongside the challenge, but I guess I bit off more than I could chew, and over estimated at how much I could fit in.

I have been finding that many emotions have been rising to the surface as I write about the things I have learnt from being a carer, and watching my mum change before my eyes.  I had been finding that the posts had been allowing me to express and share things that I had been putting on the back burner and subsequently the emotional fall out from that manifested in different ways.   I have so much that I want to share creatively and with regards to helping others who may find them useful. 

But I was missing something.  I have been spending so much time writing about what I do that I hadn't been taking the time to just spend being creative, as there didn't seem to be the time and then after a while you begin to feel as if the well is running dry.  I wasn't feeling the excitement of sharing as I had done at the beginning and it became a chore.

It is important to me to spend time being creative every day, and when that doesn't happen its like a drain just clogging up with stuff.  My creative process enables me to release that stuff and thankfully as we express ourselves creatively that stuff is renewed and transformed and turned into a piece of art or a journal page.

This page, for me was a simple reminder that we are unique, we have so many things about ourselves that are 'all that' and more and I, we, you need a gentle reminder every now and then, especially when things seem to be clogged up!

As a carer you have to find ways to work with the time you have and take that time out (and I will cover that more in posts to come), but you have to recognise that you may not always have it together and if you don't step back and take a breath things can get overwhelming and you end up dropping a lot of balls that you had previously juggled without a problem.  I made a conscious decision on Wednesday to release myself from the stress of posting, knowing that I set my pace and have to be realistic about what you can physically do.  We also have to be mindful about committing to too many things and spreading ourselves too thin, but as a creative there is so much that I am inspired and that wants to be expressed - it can get crazy up in here!

You are so unique

I have promised myself to keep it simple from now, and I will aim to post the Carers Tips in the morning and the other posts later during the day.  I am also posting some of the new work that I have been doing on my other mixed media art blog, so check it out.  I am grateful and celebrate the ability to step back from the chaos and release the anxiety, stress or what ever else needs to be let go of. Tomorrow is another day for us to tackle challenges and be inspiring, so take it at your own pace.

Amazing qualities surround you!

For now, take a moment to think about what it is that you have that needs to be released, if only for a short while to get you back on track, or is it something that you need to let go of altogether, and give yourself permission to step back from the routine.

You can click on the 'Celebrating life' image to be taken to the rest of the posts on the Journey of a Carer.

UBC - Day 7 - Encourage - Tips for Carers

Welcome to day 7 of the Ultimate Blog Challenge, 

Tips for Carers

It can be very easy at times to loose your cool, you get frustrated and then annoyed at something that you need them to do that they are not doing, or appear to be sabotaging.  I must admit at times I have got angry at mum thinking that she is doing something on purpose, and I think that these things stem from fear, when you think about the thing that they were quite alright doing, suddenly the next day they don't have a clue how to do it.

I remember the day mum couldn't work out how to get out of her bed room.  This was in the early days and I had gone round there and my key wouldn't open the door as she had put the chain on the door.  I rang the bell and couldn't understand why she hadn't come to the door yet, I knew she was in, I kept calling through the door but didn't hear anything, so I started looking through the bedrooms thinking something must have happened.  

I was shocked when saw her through her bedroom window trying to find the door which was directly in front of her, there wasn't anything wrong with her vision but she just couldn't work it out, she kept feeling the walls and muttering to herself.  I was scared, for her and what it meant for me, as there would have to be things implemented to cope with this new change.  I called to her through the window and directed her to the door, and then when she got to it she came straight to the front door and opened it for me.

Over the years, I had to keep reminding myself that if we focused on what she could do for herself and encourage her along the way this took the anxiety out of the situation that was changing.  I am not saying that I don't get frustrated at times, but I have to  put it in perspective and celebrate all thing things that she can still do, and today being able to feed herself is something to celebrate.

For now, think about all the things that they can do and celebrate no matter how small.  The encouragement that you can give will mean so much to them, and help you put things into perspective as well!

Check out some of my A-Z posts on my journey as a carer, click on the links below

You can also click on the 'Celebrating life' image to be taken to the rest of the posts about my A-Z experience as a carer.

UBC - Day 6 - Tips for Carers - Family and Friends

Caring for a loved one can be such an isolating experience with dementia unlike say a broken leg, the leg gets better people can see that the leg is broken and so there are certain expectations about things that you are unable to do.  With dementia there isn't necessarily any outward sign, as it gets worse and ravages the memory and leaves its after effects on its unwilling participants

As the carer I have found that your relationships with family and friends can suffer, as you try and navigate your way around the changes to your routines and additional things that you need to do in order to manage the caring role, you can end up drifting from your social life, too tired to call friends when you've been up all night trying to get your loved one back in bed cause they think it is day time.  

This is the same for those with dementia, people don't know what to say, they feel awkward with the silences and stop calling or passing by.  Where possible if you can have a few people that you can call on and will call you every now and again even if it is just to say hi, it is important that you keep the connections going, and for your loved one hearing a familiar voice of someone they know can help both of you.  

You could ask friends and family to make a voice recording of things they have been doing that week and play it back.  It is a way that they can feel included in things that are going on around them. There is lots of technology that you can use to facilitate this and it is also good for those people whose family live abroad.

For now, get together with family members and a few friends and ask them to be part of a schedule where they call once a week to see how things are going, or even come round and give you a much needed break!

UBC - Day 5 Independence - Tips for Carers

Welcome to day 5 of the Ultimate Blog Challenge - Independence - Tips for Carers

In 2001 we had a family holiday to Florida with my mum, sister and my husbands side of the family, and mum was in the early stages of dementia, living on her own and pretty much independent.  When we decided to go to one of the theme parks with mum I suggested that we get a wheel chair as there was quite a bit of walking, mum point blankly refused to even consider using it.  While I saw it as a means of convenience and getting around quickly, mum saw it as taking away her independence, and she remarked to a family friend that she needed to hold on to her independence for as long as possible as when there is no one around she is going going to have to take care of her self.  On hearing this I saw how much I needed to at times step back and let her take her own time to do things. 

The world was not going to end if she took an extra 15 minutes to do something and I had to work around her time whenever possible.  I found that while and in the midst of her loosing her independence it actually gave her a sense of being independent, and so impacted on her health and well-being and how she felt.  You have to help the ones that you are caring for feel as if they are holding on to a part of themselves especially, in an environment where nothing is the same and constantly changes as the memory decreases.

For today, give yourself that extra bit of time to get through the days activities, in doing so you create less stress and impact greatly on your overall heath and well-being.

UBC - Day 4 - Remember their story - Tips for Carers

Remember their story........

  

  

Welcome to Day 4 of the Ultimate Blog Challenge. 

In the early days of mums dementia we would find that she would repeat herself a lot of the time.  We didn’t know or expect to be where we are now and the decline over the years rapidly increased.  Mum would talk a lot about my father who had pass many years previously and she would recount the story of them meeting and how she had her eye on him.  She told us that when he saw her he called to her – she played hard to get for a while and then the rest resulted in 3 children and many years of happy marriage.  I didn’t understand how important those stories would be to me as time when on and these are the same stories that I repeat back to her hoping to spark a memory or bring a smile to her face.

The decline in memory even with medication is inevitable but one of the things that I have found helped greatly was putting together a book filled with photographs and a little bit of information.  It is just an A5 book and I printing out some of the pictures, if you want to create something bigger you can.. 

I also created this folder with information that anyone who is with mum can go through with her and get her to talk about some of the images and interact This means that even if you don’t know her you can engage her and help her to recapture her story, sometimes she just listens and sometimes you get a smile from her as she has taken the information in. 

This is also a good exercise to do with the younger generation; if you have photographs of when you were younger get them out and start talking about those times.  There is so much about our stories that are lost and don’t get handed down and end up in a box as old photographs.  I encourage you to spend some time capturing the stories and keeping the memories alive, you can never underestimate the power of those times spent sharing.

For today, take one photo at a time, and remember and record the memories.  Do leave a comment and tell me what you do with the photographs that you have in your collection....Blessings!

UBC - Day 2 Tips for Carers - Organised

Ultimate Blog Challenge - Day 2

I don't think that anyone gets up and decides that they want to be a carer, and it was never anything that ever crossed my mind that one day I would be looking after my mother.  You grow with expectations that you will see your parents live to a ripe age in relatively good health, and in turn see your children and your children's children grow up, but when your parent gets ill you realise that it is not going to happen like that.  There was no manual, no preparation, no guidance only fear, loss and sadness.

Mum when we were kids

In the beginning I didn't want to ask for help thinking that I should know how to look after my mum, and thought that asking for help would be seen as a sign of weakness.  The very thought of admitting that there was even something wrong in my mind reflected on who I was as a person.

Mum spending time with me at my home when I was 25

I found that being organised in your feelings and emotions is a way to take some of the stress out of what is needed.  This revelation came quite by chance.  I began to separate the functional needs from the emotional ones and this made it easier to deal with what had to be done, and it allowed me time to deal with how I felt about the situation.

Organised

When I allowed myself to just think about what had to be done practically, like taking mum in her wheelchair to the doctors for a check up, all I allowed myself to do was walk through all the practicalities, and give myself enough time to get there.  I didn't think about how I felt about doing it, or how sad I felt about her having to use the wheelchair, all I focused on was that the wheelchair gave us flexibility and we were able to get where we needed quicker than if she had to walk, it also took some of the strain and stress off her as I then didn't become frustrated with thinking about whether we would be on time or not.

Emotional

Mum and Robert at a family sports day

I know that at some point I am going to get emotional about the fact that mum cannot do what she used to.  If you are a carer you will have shed tears of frustration, loss, sorrow, or sobbed when tired and just wanted it all to stop.  I questioned how much longer I would have to care for her, and the lost of time that will not be refunded when I couldn't be with my son in the early days.  All these emotions need to be addressed and need to be heard and dealt with.  In later posts I will share some of the ways in which you can use creative activities. 

For today try and organise the tasks that you need to do and find a gentle way of dealing with the emotional issues that come up

                         

You can also click on the 'Celebrating life' image to be taken to the rest of the posts

Yesterday was International Day of Older Persons, what did you managed to do to celebrate the life of an elderly person. You don't have to wait for one special day but can do a little something every day, hear their stories, pass these stories onto the young and continue to celebrate their contribution to your lives and your communities. 

Also check out Silver Sunday which is an annual day of fun and free activities for older people across the UK. Led by The Sir Simon Milton Foundation, it celebrates older people and their contribution to our communities while combating loneliness and isolation. Everyone can get involved, and you can organise your own event, spread the word, or simply attending an activity. Silver Sunday will take place on 5th October 2014!

Reflections and Image - Amanda Trought, Realityarts

Ultimate Blog Challenge - Day 1 - 31 Tips for Carers and more!

I am taking part in the Ultimate Blog Challenge where you post every day for the month of October.  I am looking forward to visiting new blogs, gleaning new information and be inspired.  It starts today, and it really makes you wonder where all the year has gone to.

It will be a challenge, and it will also be great if you can stop by for these posts, and check out some of the others that I will be posting.

My focus for the month will be about identifying 31 tips or nuggets of inspiration that might help you if you are a carer, or know someone who is a carer or about to take on the caring role.  My focus is dementia as that is where my experience lies as I look after my mother, but you can adapt it for any other caring setting. I will also include things that you can do for yourself as the carer.  I have written about my journey as a carer and when I did the A-Z challenge a few years ago I focused on aspects of care and things that I had come to my attention as I navigated the role.  I will share a link to the posts at the end of each day and you can go and check them out.

Whilst my mother is physically unable to do much for herself and now uses a wheelchair some of the suggestions will suit both the wheelchair bound and those who are able to walk about. 

Thinking about these activities and tips have helped me, there has been help and support along the way but it didn't always come easy and I have had to adapt to suit our particular situation.  It is not an exhaustive list of ideas but but it is a start and might help you along the way, and help you incorporate creativity into your lives.  I hope that it can be of use to you, share with others, let me know what has worked for you In all cases, adapt to suit your needs and circumstances and above all have fun and be thankful for the day that you have regardless what you are able to do.



Here is the first of the A-Z challenge posts that I have shared that will help you understand our story - A is for Alzheimer’s  You can also click on the 'Celebrating life' image to be taken to the rest of the posts

Today is International Day of Older Persons, what ever you can do to celebrate the life of an elderly person will mean so much in the life of another, do you have any elderly relatives, neighbours that you can check up on and see if there is anything you can do to assist.  Celebrate their contribution to your lives and your communities.  

Also check out Silver Sunday which is an annual day of fun and free activities for older people across the UK. Led by The Sir Simon Milton Foundation, it celebrates older people and their contribution to our communities while combating loneliness and isolation. Everyone can get involved, and you can organise your own event, spread the word, or simply attending an activity.   Silver Sunday will take place on 5th October 2014!

So there we have it, quite a lot to think about and while you prepare yourself for a month of insight, reflection and creativity the first tip is this:

Reflections and Image - Amanda Trought - Realityarts

Needing that spark

It's either your spark plugs or your head gasket the Greenflag driver informed me - I had set out earlier to drive to my mums only to find the car wouldn’t start.

An hour and a half prior to that Alan and Sekani had pushed me in the car down the road hoping to push start it, and when that failed to jump-start it but to no avail.  The car stood in the driveway of an unknown neighbour. I knocked on their door, they opened ready to tell me that they were not interested in what I was selling, relieved when I told them about the car, they were happy for it to stay until I got some assistance.

I thought of all the things I had planned to do at my mums had I got their earlier and the impact that not having a car over the next few days would mean especially in this snow. I like things to be organised especially when it comes to my mum – I have accepted that now, to have things crop up wasn’t in my plans for the coming week, nor was the call out fee of £108 as the breakdown cover I had didn’t include home start. I had been feeling a bit off, trying to get into the swing of things but wanting so badly for the first time just to sit and be creative, but I could feel all my plans unravelling as the additional burdens arranged themselves like cheerleaders at the side of the road along with the general feeling of malaise - I knew I should have got the car serviced but decided to leave it for another year.

How like our cars do we unexpectedly stop functioning, out of the blue an unexpected ache and pain, or that numbness you were feeling in your hands suddenly gets worse.  When was the last time you gave your body and over haul?  We can become too rundown from the day to day trials of life that can invariably wear us down and making sure we look after our health and well-being is the thing that will prevent those unexpected visits to the doctors.

Take time as we come to the end of the month to re-evaluate your health, what your putting into your body, and are you getting enough nourishment from the foods you are currently eating? There is no time like the present, and you want to ensure you have more than enough energy to work on your dreams, unlike our cars this is the one body that we have, so we need to look after it!  Blessings

How are you going to look after yourself this year?

Join me every day this month for the   Ultimate blog challenge

Camden Town - Out and a about

As we embark on a new year, I look at the many challenges that will come our way and promise myself to face them head on.  I took my mum out for a walk recently.  She is beginning to find walking distances difficult so I got her a wheel chair for when she gets tired.  We are beginning to note the changes as time passes and can see that she gets more fragile.  You imagine your mum to be around for ever and as I see her fade before my eyes, I think of my own mortality.  At some stage the difficult questions will need to be answered, for the time being as I graze over the surface of the impact of dementia I often retreat back into the practical of how can we make her quality of life better and enjoy the moment on this walk I become distracted by my environment.

We walked down to Camden town – well she walked part way and then sat in the wheelchair for the rest of the journey.  We took in the sites of the spectrum of people and the unusual shops.  Camden Lock seems to be a magnet for tourists from all over the world, each going about their day, trying to get that bargain in the shops.  

It actually has quite a nice vibe and even in the cold there are musicians that play in key areas, commanding a crowd amidst the hustle and bustle.  The canal with the boats and barges as they pass (if you ever get a chance to go on one) is actually a pleasant trip to take.

As we walked further our eyes were drawn to the many shop fronts with the large displays and imagery, which adds character to the eclectic nature of Camden Town.  

People selling their Cd's trying to convince you that it’s what you would like to hear.  It’s a place you can hang around for ages as there is so much to see - and some lovely places to eat.  

 

As mum got tired and started to complain of the cold, I realised just how far I had walked with her in the wheel chair and began to feel tired as well.  We slowly made our way back home and needless to say both had a good night’s sleep.

Join me every day this month for the   Ultimate blog challenge